1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote access system and method, and particularly to a remote access system and method for transferring data items between a remote server or holding area and a local device.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is increasingly common for workers to require access to corporate documents and email even when away from the office, and a variety of products and systems have been developed to suit the needs of such mobile workers. Most popular are Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and VPN solutions are now available for both computers, for example desktop and laptop Penal Computers (PCs and mobile devices, for example Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones.
However, while a VPN allows interaction with private corporate information on a device's screen, it does not always give convenient access to the surrounding peripherals. For example, a mobile worker cannot use an available (public) printer unless they physically attach it to their mobile device and install drivers. Similarly, scanners, monitors, projectors and other peripherals cannot be used in an ad hoc and wireless way so as to interact securely with private corporate information. This is particularly so for mobile workers for whom it is not practical to carry a laptop since, although mobile devices are being developed to support VPNs, these devices lack rendering capabilities, drivers and the physical connectivity to allow connection to local peripherals.
Likewise, Microsoft and IBM's Lotus division both produce products that allow a user to browse their email on a mobile phone, but there is no way for the user to print out an email on a local printer, or to display the email on an available large screen in order to read it comfortably. This is particularly a problem when emails contain attachments (word processor documents, presentations, spreadsheets, graphics) that cannot be satisfactorily viewed on the small screen of a typical mobile device.
Peripherals such as those mentioned are becoming publicly available. For example, convenience stores such as Lawson's and Seven-Eleven in Japan already have printers behind the counter, currently used mainly for photo printing.
Our co-pending United Kingdom application no. 0309045.3 describes a system allowing a corporate server to stream a rendered document through a mobile device to a local printer. However, this system requires much, if not all, of the rendered document to be transferred over potentially costly and slow mobile networks. It also requires the mobile device to have capabilities that are not yet standard.
FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings is a block diagram illustrating a remote access system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,144,997 (“System and method for accessing and distributing electronic documents”), U.S. Pat. No. 6,397,621 (“Secure token-based document server”), U.S. Pat. No. 6,430,601 (“Mobile Document Paging Service”) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,487,189 (“Mobile E-mail Document Transaction Service”). The system, referred to herein as the Satchel system, comprises a mobile device 2 in wireless communication with a document server 4 and an Internet-enabled appliance 6. The system allows the wireless mobile device 2 to store a document token, for example a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), specifying a document to be retrieved from the document server 4, and to pass on the document token wirelessly to the Internet-enabled appliance 6 in order that the appliance 6 may retrieve the document specified by the document token from the document server 4. The system allows the distribution of documents from one person to another by transmission of the document token rather than the document itself.
FIG. 2 of the accompanying drawings is a block diagram illustrating the PrintMe system (see www.printme.com for details). The system comprises a PrintMe Service 10 located within and accessible through the World Wide Web 8, a Personal Computer 16 located within a private space 12, for example a Local Area Network (LAN), protected by a barrier 14 such as a firewall, and a PrintMe Printer 18.
The PrintMe system operates as follows. A mobile user who wishes to print a document located on their Personal Computer 16 uploads that document in advance from the Personal Computer 16 to the PrintMe Service 10, usually relying on the PrintMe service to render the document before printing. The user can specify which one of a number of PrintMe printers 18 is to print the document at the time of uploading that document to the PrintMe Service 10, so that every PrintMe printer 18 requires a unique identifier. It is also possible that a code is generated by the PrintMe Service 10 associated with the document the user has uploaded; the user is then able to enter the code directly into the chosen printer in order to retrieve and print the document at that printer.
The mDoc product from Xerox® can integrate mobile document access with the PrintMe system. The mDoc product allows a document to be printed by selecting the document on a mobile device and entering the identifier of a remote printer into the mobile device in order to send the printer, and uses the PrintMe service to achieve this. The document is sent immediately to the specified printer.
US-A-2002/0004404 describes a system in which the user sends a message to a display or printer, via a mobile phone network. This message contains the URL of some content that the user wishes the appliance to display or print. The appliance then retrieves this content and renders it.
Our co-pending United Kingdom application no. 0314410.2 discloses a remote access method that enables the transfer of documents from a remote server to a (public) local device under the control of a mobile device. The method of transfer involves creating an access identifier that is either displayed on the screen of the mobile device and typed into the local device by the user, or is transferred from the mobile device to the local device by a local wireless connection (for example, infrared, Bluetooth® or wireless LAN); the local device can then use the access identifier to retrieve the documents.
All of the above methods suffer from one of the two following drawbacks. Either the user is required unnecessarily to enter information into either the local or mobile device, or the mobile device requires communication mechanisms that are not readily available on current-generation mobile phones.
In relation to the former drawback, in one embodiment described in our co-pending United Kingdom application no. 0314410.2, the access identifier is entered into the local device by hand and this may involve significant typing. In the mDoc scenario, the user is unnecessarily required to enter the identifier of the printer into the mobile device, even though they may be situated directly in front of the printer.
In relation to the latter drawback, even though some mobile phones do have local networking capabilities (infrared, Bluetooth®), on no current phone are these capabilities accessible from within the phone's web browser (which would typically be used to display the application allowing documents to be selected). On some phones it may be possible to install an application that would allow communication over a local wireless network (for example, phones based on the Symbian or Microsoft SmartPhone operating systems). However, this requires the user or phone vendor to have undertaken a previous step of modifying the phone's software. Regardless, many phones lack any sort of local networking capabilities at all.
These drawbacks mean that all the previous-considered schemes that have sought to make local peripherals available from mobile devices have either been cumbersome for the user, requiring them to perform unnecessary extra steps to initiate the document transfer, or cannot be deployed on most current generation mobile phones (without significant hardware and/or software modifications to the phone).